2011 last orders at the bar!

Sometimes the least likely people make you think and reflect…

I was pretty much brought up in a pub and can confirm that people totally see the pub landlord as a Guru. Everyone wants the attention, adoration and mostly advice from the landlord.It’s quite strange.

My dad was a pub landlord for ten years, the amount of advice he dished out and secrets he harboured for customers were enough to keep Eastenders in scripts for years and years. He counselled and supplied copious amounts of alcohol to the divorced, bereaved, broken hearted etc…. There really is no subject or situation that would shock a landlord. They’ve seen it all.

Following my break up 4 years ago I fled to a place where I knew no one at all, except my family. Luckily for me, my family frequented the local pub; it was to be my version of rehab and the place that healed my broken heart.Pubs are a weird comfort to me, I have no qualms about being in a pub on my own, there’s no better escapism than drinking with strangers with no questions asked.

Slowly but surely the pub community became like a second family to me and I’ve made some of my best friends there during that time. There is something quite magical about going to a place where everyone knows your name (Cheers!) and even after a few months absence you will be welcomed back like you were only away for a day.

The local pub landlord is not a man of a million words but its pretty standard that when he does divulge his words of wisdom they are not to be ignored.

When asking me what my New Years resolutions were, I said I didn’t really have any. He said “Yours should be to meet a nice man” I replied that I didn’t particularly want a boyfriend, in which he responded matter of factly “No you don’t have to want one, but if you met the right one then it would just happen” and then a firm “it’s about time”. I tried to argue that it wasn’t the be all and end all but I gave up knowing I had had lost that argument before it started!

So, the landlord has spoken and only time will tell if 2012 agrees. ;)